(1961) The Chapman Report

by Irving Wallace

  Although Dr. Jonas had determined, from the moment of confrontation, to maintain an even temper and not snap angrily if incited, he now found himself involuntarily reddening. “Are you often accustomed to such outbursts, Dr. Chapman?”

  “You have one career and one career only,” Dr. Chapman continued, “and that’s to destroy me.”

  “Why on earth should I want to do that, as a mere act of destruction? I’ve never set eyes on you before, and, besides-“

  “You’re hungry and ambitious, that’s why,” said Dr. Chapman. “As long as my theories are proved, accepted, there’s no place for you. You’re like … like a horse and buggy manufacturer in 1895, when Duryea came along-“

  Momentarily, Dr. Jonas’ good humor was restored. He had a witticism at tongue’s tip. “You mean-“

  But Dr. Chapman, bludgeoning forward, overrode him. “… fighting to maintain the old, outmoded ways, fighting for your existence. If you can discredit me by any means-like sneaking into this program or playing footsies behind my back with the Zollman crowd-you’ll do so. In order for you to live, I’ve got to die. You want to be able to step over my carcass to grab yourself a Zollman grant-oxygen for your little quack clinic on the beach-“

  Dr. Chapman had run out of breath, and now Dr. Jonas threw himself recklessly into the conversation. “Yes,” he said sharply, “I want to destroy you-“

  “There!”

  “… but not as you imagine, for self-advancement. Surely your legmen have reported that I already have full support for my clinic and my ideas. I need no more.” He had the desire to wound this righteous, condescending adversary. “Understand this, Chapman, the voracious hunger for success that seems to have warped your scientific faculties-it hasn’t possessed me, not yet. At the risk of being pompous, I’m telling you all I want is truth-truth, dammit, ‘ no more, no less, and I won’t apologize for the word. To me, your ideas are not truth but a lie-no, not a lie but a half-truth that you persist in peddling as the full truth, the only truth. It’s because I feel you’ve abandoned all efforts at patient inquiry, unspectacular investigation, trial and error-you can admit to no error, you’ve lost the humility and objectivity to confess a wrong, to try another way, to revise or improve your methods-because I feel you are performing this way-have to perform this way, because you’ve gone to the public too soon-because of that I am intent on fighting you. Yes, I shall fight you, and every pretender like you who disguises himself as pure scientist instead of showing himself as the promoter that he is. The mask you wear is Einstein, but behind it I see Bamum and Tex Rickard-“

  Dr. Chapman’s hands had bunched hard, and his massive head trembled on his neck like one afflicted by St. Vitus’s dance. “If I didn’t know you were purposely baiting me,” he said in a furious undertone, “wanting me to strike you, so that you can get your name in the papers, drag me down to your hooligan level, I’d hit you. I still may.”

  “I see,” said Dr. Jonas. “That would be further evidence of your cool detachment, I suppose? Is that what you advocate to settle differences of scientific opinion-first barring public discussion of your survey, then threatening to slug your critic? I’m not surprised.”

  “I repeat, you’re neither scientist nor critic-you’re a hooligan and fool, Jonas. You can’t even manage your own little back yard. What have you done out here in California? Talked to a few impoverished Mexicans and slut wives of truck drivers, and then “bleated about marriage counseling as the supreme answer? Is that your idea of sexual enlightenment, of improving the species? A fat chance you’ll have to convince anyone. I’ve come two thousand miles out here, to accomplish in two weeks the job you failed to accomplish in two years-ten years.”

  “You’ve accomplished nothing. You’ve done infinite mischief.”

  “I have, have I?”

  “Yes, you have. And I’m not guessing. I’ve had the opportunity to consult with several of the married women you and your associates have interviewed. In one case, a young woman-one of the volunteers you interviewed’-was dangerously stimulated, became involved with an entire group of men, with results you can imagine. I’m not blaming this entirely on you-yet, I have every reason to believe that the excitement engendered by your questions, with no attendant warmth of-“

  “Don’t sermonize me! If that’s the sort of Police Gazette tripe you’re intending to peddle to Zollman-“

  “I’m peddling nothing that is not corroborated by careful counter-testing. No, I have no real evidence to prove that your interview technique is harmful in itself. I have only a suspicion, backed by a few isolated cases. But you’re giving me an idea, Chapman, I’ll tell you that. It may be something worth going into one day-an examination of the harm left in the wake of your samplings. But for the moment, I’m satisfied to know that the net result of your work;-“

  Dr. Jonas was suddenly aware that the two of them had now become three. The third party was Borden Bush, who, descending the circular staircase, had seen them bitterly embattled and had arrived to break it up.

  “Well, well, gentlemen,” he interrupted too loudly, nervously washing dry hands, “I see you’ve met and had your private question and answer session off camera.” Firmly, he took Dr. Chapman’s rigid arm. “Better take your place, Dr. Chapman. Only five minutes more. We want to do a warm-up. And I want you to glance at the new intro-we’re explaining the panel substitution, since the network earlier advertised Dr. Jonas’ name on several station breaks-yes-and then, I thought, well, a sentimental word about Cass Miller would be in order.”

  Borden Bush had Dr. Chapman’s attention at last, and he began to lead the larger man toward the stage.

  “Good luck,” Dr. Jonas called after them, not without irony.

  Dr. Chapman looked back over his shoulder. “You go to hell,” he said.

  It was shortly after three o’clock when Paul Radford hurried into The Briars’ Women’s Association building and made his way up the stairs, two at a time.

  Striding down the empty, stretching corridor, the totem beat of his heels reverberating against the barren plaster walls, Paul carried his outrage high and visible, so that those who wore cracked armor could see it plainly and take to their battlements.

  Since early morning, since page one and page seven, the necessity for the tournament of truth had been growing upon him. Actually, he surmised, the necessity for it had been born the evening before, by the swimming pool, with the brief exchange over a dead man’s letter. Yet, the exact form the challenge now took had been shaped over the breakfast tray.

  He remembered the shock of the opening announcement on Borden Bush’s “The Hot Seat.” He had been seated beside Horace and a drowsy Naomi, and he remembered the bewilderment he had felt, he and Horace both, at the moderator’s suave statement that Dr. Victor Jonas, psychologist, had withdrawn from the show and that a last-minute substitution had been made.

  After the sugary half-hour program, a brief portion like a mutual-admiration society in conclave, the remainder a winning monologue by Dr. Chapman, Paul had jumped to his feet and, the applause of the television studio audience still loud in his ears, he had gone into Naomi’s kitchen to telephone Dr. Jonas. His call had been answered by Peggy Jonas, who also confessed mystification at her husband’s nonappearance. “I can’t understand it,” she had said. “He was up half the night preparing questions to ask Dr. Chapman.” Paul had left Naomi’s telephone number with Peggy Jonas, and then, pacing, turning over the possibilities in his mind, he had waited and waited, until finally Victor Jonas had called him back. Then it was that Paul had heard the details of the cancellation. Then it was that the outrage had developed into a formidable weapon.

  Too agitated and impatient to eat lunch, Paul had sought to track down Dr. Chapman by telephone, ringing the motel and the Association building, and then each again and again. At last, after two-thirty, Benita Selby had replied from the phone in the conference room of the Association building. Yes, she had said, Dr. Chapman and she had just re
turned from the broadcast and the luncheon given afterward by the network and motion-picture producers. Yes, she had promised, they would be cleaning up last-minute work in the building for at least another hour.

  Now, arriving at the conference room door, a hundred thoughts wheeling through his brain, Paul halted, inhaled, and raised his hand to knock. Then, instead, he reached down for the knob, turned it, and strode inside.

  Dr. Chapman was not alone. He was in the act of dictating to Benita Selby, who sat across from him, her pencil gliding steadily across the shorthand pad on her crossed knee.

  “… was truly a martyr to science and scientific advancement,” Dr. Chapman was dictating. “For fourteen months, he gave unsparingly-“

  Dr. Chapman acknowledged Paul’s arrival with a nod. “Just completing the press release. Be done in a moment, Paul.”

  Woodenly, Paul crossed to a metal folding chair nearby and sat on its edge.

  Dr. Chapman pointed at Benita’s pad. “The last, again.”

  Benita lifted the pad and read, “Saddened by the untimely death of his devoted associate, Dr. Chapman today issued the following statement to the nation: ‘Cass Miller was truly a martyr to science and scientific advancement-‘ ”

  “Benita, make that, ‘to science and the pressures of scientific advancement.’ Go on.”

  She poked at her pad, then resumed reading from it. ” ‘For fourteen months, he gave unsparingly …’” She allowed the last to hang in the air.

  Dr. Chapman pursed his lips, regarded the light fixture above, and smoothly took up the continuity. “… of his mind and body, toiling, not eight-hour days, but ten-and twelve-hour days and nights, so eager was he to see my pioneer work in sexual behavior brought to a successful conclusion. But Cass Miller’s martyrdom will not have been in vain. The forthcoming volume to which he

  contributed so large a part, A Sex History of the American Married Female, scheduled for publication next spring, will be dedicated to the memory of Cass Miller. And because of his share in it, I feel sure, all humankind will be the healthier and happier. Services for Mr. Miller-are being conducted today in the College Chapel at Reardon, Wisconsin, where colleagues and friends will mourn him. His remains were shipped this morning from Los Angeles to Ros-well, New Mexico, where his only surviving relative, his beloved mother, Mrs. R. M. Johnson, resides.”

  Dr. Chapman looked to Paul for approval, but Paul dropped his gaze to the floor. Paul had been remembering how Cass had admired Rainer Maria Rilke and spoken several times of the poet’s soul-sickness. Paul thought of something that Rilke had once written in a letter. He was aware of Dr. Chapman’s eyes still upon him, and he could recollect two lines of Rilke’s letter: “All the great men have let their lives get overgrown, like an old path. . , . Their life is stunted like an organ they no longer use.”

  “That does it, Benita,” Dr. Chapman was saying. “That winds us up. Make six copies and send them Red Arrow to the wire services and papers on the list. Better get right on it. They’ve been nagging all day.”

  Benita, gripping pad and pencil like a penitent possessed of holy relics, dashed out of the sacred grotto to spread His word.

  Dr. Chapman pulled his chair in Paul’s direction, the legs rasping on the floor. “Grim business,” he said. “Glad to have it done.” He shook his head. “Poor devil.” He allowed a decent moment of reverence to pass, as a transition to the world of the living. He sighed. “Well, now,” he said, laying his palms together. “Well, Paul -you saw the show, I hope?”

  “I saw it.”

  “What’d you think?”

  “The usual.”

  “Now, what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing more or less. You gave them a lot of platitudes, titillated them with a few flashy sex references, and said nothing particularly new or useful.”

  Dr. Chapman’s eyes narrowed, but he remained calm since he had been expecting Paul to demand an explanation about the letter. He decided that there was yet no reason to be offended. “It’s a family program. It goes to all ages, all homes. What would you expect me to do?”

  “Are you asking me?”

  “Yes.”

  “For one thing, I’d expect a man of your stature not to insist that the network set you up with a panel of sycophant dummies. Those three asses. You could have lifted any one of them up, bent him over, and he would have squeaked ‘Bravo, bravo,’ like a rubber doll mouthing ‘Mama.’ You needed an eligible challenger, not a tanktown setup. Why did you kick Dr. Jonas off the show?”

  Dr. Chapman bristled. This was unexpected. “Who said I did?”

  “Dr. Jonas said it. To me. And I believe him.”

  “Jonas? You’ve been talking to that charlatan?”

  “You’re the one who sent me to him first, with your little bribe. Certainly I called him. When I heard the announcement on the air, I couldn’t believe my ears. They made it sound like he’d chickened out. I had to be sure. So I called him. And I made him tell me, too.”

  “You know how we feel about him.”

  “Not we, Doctor. You, alone.”

  Dr. Chapman narrowed his eyes again. His high-pitched voice settled a key lower. “I don’t have to defend my actions to you, Paul. That man’s a paid destroyer. Worse, he’s mad for power. He wants my mantle. If he were a bona fide scientist-interested in truth-that would be different. I’d have welcomed him. But to have my potential assassin foisted upon me without my knowledge, on my show-do you think I’m mad?”

  “I think you like success more than science. I think you’re afraid of losing the limelight. And, in the matter of Jonas or anyone else who honestly disagrees with you, I think you’re fast becoming paranoiac.”

  “That’s damn reckless talk-from one who knows my work-and disappointing-from one whom I had hoped to make my successor. You’re not drunk, are you? If you are, perhaps it will be easier to forgive you.”

  Paul sat erect. “I’ve never been more sober. Liquor could never make me speak like this-to you. Disenchantment might.”

  “We’re all overtired, Paul.”

  “I’m not. And you don’t seem to be. You still seem to have had enough energy left over from yesterday to fire Victor Jonas, and apparently yesterday you had enough energy to transform Cass Miller from rapist and killer into martyr of science. That’s impressive alchemy. How do you do it?”

  Dr. Chapman remained silent a moment, studying his hands on the table. “Yes, I’ve been expecting to hear from you-after you’d read the morning papers.” He looked up, but not at Paul. “If you think you can be reasonable for a while, I’ll discuss it with you. You see, I think in the end it comes down to a matter of proper perspective. You look at a problem up close, too close, and that’s all you see, for you see nothing beyond. But step away from it, far enough away, so that your own being isn’t involved, and you get a fuller view of the situation and can judge it and what’s behind it and around it. Now, take the matter of Cass’s letter-you saw only that someone was being held for questioning or arrested, and the letter might save him, and so, emotionally, you ran off to prove the man was being unjustly held, and to devil with the greater consequences. I, on the other hand, kept .my head. Perhaps because I was trained as a scientist. You, unfortunately, were not. You behaved as an author, a layman, a romantic. I don’t blame you for this. But you were a victim of your background. You see, Paul, I believe that in approaching a crisis of the moment, the true scientist has much in common with the Catholic churchman. Both of us know we have been in business a long, long time and will continue to be in business. We look down on the earthlings through the telescope of history, and we see that every year, decade, generation, age, repeats its critical moments constantly, over and over again. If we became permanently embattled in each and every one, we would lose ourselves to foolish detail, forget the ultimate goals-“

  “You are now speaking of survival, not justice,” said Paul quietly. “Is that it, Doctor? Let an innocent go hang, he’s too small in
that telescope of yours, he’s a speck, so that you and your grand survey ate spared?”

  “All right. I’ll bring this down to the petty platform on which you insistently wish to engage me. Yes, I’ll concede it, the necessity to transform Cass Miller from murderer and rapist to martyr of science. Because I saw that the thoughtless masses would react even as you are reacting. After reading a confession made by an unsettled mind, they would judge us emotionally, without patience for the pertinent facts. But what are the facts? Technically, Cass did not murder that woman. The coroner says she died of a fall. There is no evidence that she was struck. Technically, she was anything but a woman of sterling character. By her own admission, she was unfaithful to her husband and preparing to walk out on her children.”

  “And you feel that justifies rape?”

  “Nothing of the sort. I merely state the facts. As to the rape part, suppose the letter you had so generously passed on to the police had been published with accompanying headlines today? How would it have served the poor woman, the memory of her, to her children and relatives alive? How would they ever have been able to know that it had been rape and not-“

  “What kind of rotten insinuation is that?” Paul demanded.

  “I’ve stated her record of infidelity, Paul. Benita’s checked the questionnaires, and it was Cass who interviewed her. Perhaps she invited Cass-“

  “Cass would have crowed about it in his post-mortem “note. Instead, he wrote in abject shame and guilt.”

  “At any rate, we’ll never know. Furthermore, at present, only the deceased woman’s husband and a handful of others know that she was engaged in an extramarital affair and prepared to abandon her family. Had the letter been published, the sordid sensation would have branded her children for life. Had you thought of that?”